Research team maps parasite genome

SAN ANTONIO, June 30 (UPI) -- A research team in Texas has mapped the genome of the parasite that causes schistosomiasis, a debilitating disease that can impair childhood development.

The work done at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research may lead to a vaccine and better treatments, Timothy Anderson, the research leader, told the San Antonio Express-News.

"If we can understand why parasites can be resistant to drugs, if we can understand the biochemical pathways that are attacked by these drugs, we can re-engineer those drugs so they do work, or we can design new drugs,"

The research was published Tuesday in Genome Biology.

Unlike the most common parasitic disease, malaria, which remains a major killer, schistosomiasis, the second most common, is not usually fatal. But the disease can damage internal organs and in children it hurts both physical growth and cognitive development.

About 200 million people are infected with schistosomiasis, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and it causes about 200,000 deaths a year. The infection is usually caught by walking in contaminated water.